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Palms West Monthly • March 2019 • Page 1
Palms West
Monthly
WELLINGTON • ROYAL PALM BEACH • WEST PALM BEACH • LOXAHATCHEE GROVES • THE ACREAGE Volume 9, Number 3
PalmsWestMonthly.com
SPIDERS AND FROGS AND SNAKES, OH MY! Repticon West Palm Beach returns to the South Florida Fairgrounds in March for two days PAGE 4
FREE • March 2019
Coming home …
Leukemia & Lymphoma Society black-tie gala nets $941,000
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society raised more than $941,000 at its annual blacktie gala held at The Breakers, titled “Frosted.”
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Wellington Barn Tour features four high-end barns
If you’ve every wondered what goes on behind the scene in Wellington’s equestrian community, you won’t want to miss the 2019 Wellington Barn Tour on March 16.
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Dr. Tunjarnika Coleman-Ferrell
Photo by Gina Fontana/Palms West Monthly
Ann Langer, right, of Deerfield Beach, examines one of artist Nick Cave’s Soundsuits at the Norton Museum of Art, just days after the museum reopened to the public on Saturday, Feb. 9. Cave is known for his unique fabric sculptures and performances.
Transformed Norton Museum of Art reopens to
RAVE REVIEWS
“If we were a car, we would’ve been a 12-yearold Volkswagen,” says Norton’s ex-CEO Hope Alswang. “Someone handed us a Lamborghini.” By RON HAYES Palms West Monthly
West Palm Beach’s construction boom: Good or bad? West Palm Beach is in the middle of a construction boom the likes of which have not been seen in the city since the 1920s and ’30s.
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Groundbreaking held for Gold Star Families Memorial Groundbreaking took place Feb. 20, just two months after West Palm Beach city commissioners approved the site on Flagler Drive.
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WEST PALM BEACH — Stroll around the galleries in the Norton Museum of Art these days and you’ll be dazzled by all the magnificent works adorning the walls. Here’s Pablo Picasso and there’s Claude Monet. Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keefe. Winslow Homer, Jackson Pollack, Paul Gauguin and, yes, students from the Bak Middle School of the Arts in West Palm Beach. But don’t be surprised if you leave thinking the newly redesigned museum is the most magnificent work of all. “If we were a car, we would’ve been a 12-yearold Volkswagen,” says Hope Alswang, the museum’s executive director and CEO for the past nine years who will officially retire March 1. “And someone handed us a Lamborghini.” In fact, nobody handed the 78-year-old museum anything. The redesigned, reconfigured and reimagined Norton that reopened Feb. 9 came after eight years of hard work, $110 million in donations from generous philanthropists and a lot of vision. The result is so startlingly different from the museum’s previous incarnation, it almost seems dishonest to call this a redesign. “I don’t even feel like I’m in South Florida anymore!” exclaims Meghan Hurley of Palm
Beach on a recent visit, perusing the paintings in the third floor’s European Collection. “I grew up here, I’ve been to this museum before, and I don’t recognize it. This is another world.” Opened on Feb. 8, 1941, the museum first housed the private collection of paintings and sculptures donated by Ralph Hubbard Norton, (1881-1953), a Chicago steel industrialist. The population of Palm Beach County was not quite 80,000. Today, the county is nearing 1.5 million and the collection has grown to more than 7,600 pieces. And so, in September 2011, Alswang and the board of directors sat down to create a Norton for the 21st century. Alswang remembers a day in 2010 when Norton trustee Gil Maurer asked her who her first choice would be for an architect to redesign the Norton. “Norman Foster,” she told him. Lord Norman Foster’s company, Foster+Partners, created the Great Court for The British Museum in London, the expanded Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Apple headquarters in Cupertino, Calif. and airports in Hong Kong and Beijing. And now, the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. On Feb. 6, 2016, ground was broken and three years later, it’s here, a virtually new museum with a whole array of new pro-
PBSC provost returns to her college roots Dr. Coleman-Ferrell leads PBG campus where she took her first classes
grams to offer the public. Remember that former entrance way, the circular drive and parking lot at the south end bordering Cranesnest Way? It’s now a 37,000-square-foot sculpture garden with space for outdoor events and movies under the stars. On the wide expanse of grass stand three “Total Strangers,” life-size, castiron nudes by British sculptor Anthony Gormley. Looking out on the garden is a glass-enclosed, 150-foot-long indoor sculpture gallery, flooded with light from the garden. “The whole concept was to create a museum in a garden,”
PALM BEACH GARDENS — When Dr. Tunjarnika ColemanFerrell enrolled in summer classes at Palm Beach State College in Palm Beach Gardens back in 1990, she never imagined that she would one day lead the campus. She was a newly-minted Palm Beach Gardens High School graduate with a full scholarship to Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania and had plans to become a doctor. However, before leaving her South Florida roots, she got a head start by taking courses in the summer at PBSC before starting her freshman year. “At the time, I was a premedical student, but I always knew the goal was to help people. Although I decided not to go to medical school, I’m living my dream because I’m helping all people reach their goals,” said Coleman-Ferrell, who is the new provost and dean of student services at the Palm Beach Gardens campus. Coleman-Ferrell was appointed to the role in December after spending 20 years at the Boca Raton campus as a professor and administrator. Her path to get there is partly what drives her passion. After losing both of her grandfathers during her freshman year at Washington & Jefferson, she returned home and enrolled at Florida Atlantic University. She earned four degrees from FAU: a bachelor’s degree in sociology, master’s degree in public administration, an educational specialist degree and a doctorate in education.
NORTON / PAGE 7
PROVOST / PAGE 13
IF YOU GO: WHERE: The Norton Museum of Art is at 1450 S. Dixie Highway in West Palm Beach. HOURS: The Norton is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Hours are 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Fridays and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sundays. The museum is closed Wednesdays and major holidays.
COST: $18 for general admission;
$15 for seniors 65 and over; free for children 12 and under; $5 for students. Admission is free for active military and their immediate family and teachers. Admission is free to everyone every Friday and Saturday.
PARKING: Parking is free across the street at 1501 S. Dixie Hwy.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Go online to norton.org or call (561) 832-5196.